How organizations can prepare their teams to transition into remote work

by Laura Berwick,
Content Creator & Support

May 08, 2020 20:32

Organizations are transitioning into working remotely

Several organizations have asked their employees to start transitioning into working remotely as a response to growing global health concerns regarding the COVID-19 virus. Out of an abundance of caution, companies like Google and Twitter have joined a long list of organizations that have begun to suggest to employees that they should prepare to work from home in order to reduce any health risks and limit concerns around the workplace.

Businesses and employees can benefit from working remotely

Given the situation, It would be in everyone's best interest to work remotely in order to limit the potential spread of any illnesses. However working remotely does come with its occasional benefits, for starters employees can save costs spent on commuting, spend less time sitting in traffic and stop paying for parking that they wont use. Organizations can reduce their operating overhead as well by reducing spending on various subscription services such as providing snacks or meals, cleaning fees, security and even paying for commercial rental space if a long term transition is envisioned.

While this transition will provide new challenges for businesses, the impact this will have on your team will depend on their ability to adapt and continue collaborating together as they work remotely. Thankfully there are tools available to cushion the sudden change in your teams ability to socialize together and organize tasks using popular software platforms.

There are various third party applications that can provide a mutual platform for your organization's needs, so your team can continue to communicate and collaborate together effectively.

Communication Channel Providers

Communicating with your team is critical especially to the success of your sales and support teams. There are several tools that can help your team stay connected when working away from the office.

Skype: A global communication platform provided by Microsoft, Skype enables people from around the world to stay connected online. You can message or call contacts by email or phone number, Skype also provides a helpful screen sharing tool so you can present your projects or receive help on your workstation remotely.

Zoom: Zoom has recently become the standard provider of video communications services for businesses around the globe. Use Zoom to host a group meeting or conference call, screen sharing is also supported so you can collaborate with your team on various workstations remotely if needed.

Slack: Stay in touch with your team by creating your own message channels on Slack, then automate support and sales task by integrating with Slack to stay up-to-date on any new updates. Discord is also an alternative communications provider commonly used to provide a collaborative platform for various online classrooms.

Team Collaboration Platforms

Teams that work closely together and rely on regular collaboration will benefit from adopting some type of task management software to help delegate tasks productively and keep teams on the same page.

Zendesk: Would your organization benefit from using a support line or ticket system? Zendesk provides customer support software to help your organization respond to client requests and stay connected with customers. Organizations can also host support documentation or post threads using Zendesk's helpful wiki & forum builder.

Asana: Asana uses an interactive task whiteboard to help your organization keep track of ideas, upcoming tasks, goals and meetings. Assign and organize tasks or goals across various teams or individual members, who can then update or discuss tasks in real-time. Ensure your collaborators have the latest updates on various day to day objectives using task management software.

Monday.com: Monday is an advanced task manager built for medium sized businesses. Monday provides customizable task boards to support your organizations various departments. Monday is capable of integrating with various tools such as Zapier and Zendesk to automate regular sales and support tasks.

How Retreaver helps to support your remote work teams

Retreaver can integrate with any webhook accepting third party application such as Zapier to instantly connect with thousands of popular applications. Retreaver webhooks work by packaging your call data before sending it off to other platforms automatically at the end of each call. Use your gathered call data to trigger various actions using Zapier - update tasks, send messages or leave reminders for your sales and support teams as soon as a call comes into Retreaver.

Retreaver also offers native collaboration support. Invite your team into Retreaver as collaborators, then customize collaborator permissions to suit their particular needs. Collaborators can view incoming calls, analyze call data and if permitted, create and manage their own call tracking campaigns under your company account.

Retreaver campaigns will route incoming calls to the best available person, agent or department.

Gather valuable call data from your tracking campaigns then automate sales or support tasks to improve productivity across your organization using Retreaver, our flexible call tracking solutions will provide you with all the information you need to keep growing your business.